


all those broken hearts

by for_within_the_hollow_crown



Series: drift back to me (I’ll do the same) [8]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, mentioning of Jemma Simmons/Will Daniels, written for the tfsn weekly prompt "comfort"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 10:42:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11598969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_within_the_hollow_crown/pseuds/for_within_the_hollow_crown
Summary: It was that past they were now both trying to hold on to and it was that past that was now coming back in its entirety; embalmed in their memories, unabridged and the more unforgotten, it had not seen the light of day in years. Unspoken resentments were vanishing and whatever wrongs had been done through the years ceased to exist. The whole world seemed to be moving around them, bringing them further back in time and not allowing them to stand cold-hearted and self-righteously on the steps in front of the abbey.They were best friends in the world again and could be such for as long as it would take to offer comfort and accept it, one simple truth behind it all: after all this time they still couldn't let each other go. They couldn't turn their backs and pretend that Jemma wasn't standing there about to fall apart and that he wasn’t feeling anything at all.





	all those broken hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd.

[Yorkshire 1918]

 

There was no need to talk about the tragedy that had occurred a little more than two weeks before. In fact, Jemma was convinced that there was no need for words at all when their hearts all carried the same weight and their minds were all filled with the same thoughts. It was inevitable and appeared obvious and yet there was a failing in understanding such a simple idea, to grasp it properly and in its entirety, thus making it personal and a truth universally acknowledged, that drove people to open their mouths and go on talking. It was nothing much, conversation was reduced to words of circumstance - half whispered _I'm sorry for your loss-s_ that most of the time felt empty.

Firm voices and stone-cold faces, the ability to appear indifferent and unaffected, of being able to stand there without showing off any sort of emotion, was much envied by all of those who had been close to the deceased. How could they stand there, Jemma wondered, so self-composed, so held together without having any of the hurt shine through the cracks and without showing any cracks at all? And how much of it was education and how much was lack of care and borderline indifference? There was no way to tell, yet there was also the awareness that some of them were  too distant acquaintances to be there for something other than compassion;  a colleague, an editor standing there dried eyed and without any emotional bond. But then there was also Tom holding his cane so tight that his knuckles had turned white a long time ago, looking lost and quietly staring at the people in front of him, tears glistening in his eyes as he pretended to listen to whatever he was being told - words like water on a duck's back. Daisy with her lips pressed together and rainy eyes, standing next to Lavinia - an arm around her shoulders in comfort - who hadn't stopped crying since the late morning. Will's parents next to Edith, all three of them looking completely and utterly distraught, confused even, as they spoke to Jemma's parents.

Jemma, on the other hand, had not breathed a word in days. Even now, as she stood in the midst of the guests, there was the overwhelming fear of opening her mouth and for sobs replacing carefully pronounced sentences poured out in grammatical fashion. Unspoken, the words gathered at the back of her throat and, mixing with the tight knot in her stomach, made her sick. There was no place for circumstantial sentences, just a desire to be left alone and not to be seen, not to be talked to, not to be studied with scrutinizing gazes - piercing looks that seemed to aim in exposing her feelings, make her vulnerable.

How was Will Daniels' widow doing? It was a question driven by curiosity that bore no gossip and no malice, a question she didn't have an answer to. And how did she feel? She felt as if any minute now she could start screaming herself into oblivion. Moreover, on top of it all, she had no intention whatsoever to discuss Will. Not then and there, not with anyone. Besides, what good did it make to speak of Will in the past tense? To say all over again what a frightful, frightful thing it was for him to have died now that peace was just around the corner? _Poor chap, didn't deserve it. He was-_ Jemma had heard them all, dozens of variations of the same sentence going from mouth to mouth, from person to person, in a never ending chain of syllables that made the air heavy and the company unbearable. All those descriptions, that were reduced to random words here and there, lifted themselves into the air and were impossible to dismiss.

The memory of Will was becoming unbearable. It wasn't just people's words - those, Jemma was sure, she could have tolerated - but it was being at the abbey. Her mind was already so utterly filled with him and those ancient walls had watched over them all. Will, as much as them, had grown up there. There were more memories here in Yorkshire than in their flat back in London, and God knew how long they had known each other. It felt such little time and yet all went back to their childhoods when Tom had just started school and he and Will had become friends: two weeks every summer, soon to be added by calls during the season.

Will was like a ghost lingering in every room. There he was, nothing but a child, running around with Tom - down the hall, out in the garden, their voices getting distant the more they run away. There they all were in that very room, Will playing on the piano her parents had bought her and Daisy telling him to just skip the first two movements of the song he was playing least she'd fall asleep. There he was walking through the hall with Tom and Tom calling him _Daniels, old chap_ before making plans for an afternoon in York. She, Tom, Will and Daisy outside and Tom telling everyone that if they were trying to pick a fight about the suffragette movement, Will was the wrong person - not only was he a supporter but his mother was the one who supported the whole family. _No_ , _I don't mind you saying, especially now that I've seen Jemma's face._   There she was, sitting on the steps outside, telling him that her brother had yet not come back. _Actually, I've come to see you._ There they were eating dinner after a long train journey, flirting playfully with each other and Will taking her hand with a great deal of hesitation, causing the mood to become more serious than it previously had been - something new, something there that had not been there before, something that at the time they had not been able or had not wanted to admit. The two of them lying in bed, half naked, and Will tenderly kissing the skin between her shoulder blades, his utter embarrassment when the maid had walked in to open the curtains. _I'm sorry, it still seems odd to be found in your bed,_ he had admitted to her to which she had replied _but very nice? As nice as nice can be_ and then he had kissed her, his lips only slightly brushing hers _._

He had been part of her life long before their marriage and would people ask her the same questions if there weren't a small band of gold around her finger? Jemma couldn't be sure, but no one seemed to ask Tom any questions, not with the same insistence at least, and he and Will had been best friends long before she had even started to talk to him and be allowed to join them in their activities.

Three years and some months of marriage, but there had been a lifetime before that and there should have been a lifetime after it too; after everything that had happened, they had felt entitled to it. His last letter, though at the time there had been no way to know that it would be, with the neat handwriting and the ruined edges, oozed off the promise of a life together - every word, every comma reflected it. He would come back to her, he would get better and their relationship would no longer reduced to days of leave and short weekends spent at a friend's cottage by the sea. Their story could and would resume, their love would have a society to grow in and they could start making plans, lay back and explore the life that lay ahead of them. And if he came back to her and they'd end up having a lifetime, she could wake him up with all those words that she had long kept secret and they would be forever free of that half idea of a marriage of convenience, the months leading to the blossoming of feelings, months that had been painted with uncertainty and indecisiveness, overshadowed by something new. 

It was difficult to breathe now. Jemma's chest felt heavy and her head spun, the nausea that hadn't left her for day as strong as ever. There were too many noises, a cacophony of sounds that mixed with her feeling of being in more places at once, her mind lacking concentration. It was too hot, too crowded, too much and if felt, as Jemma stood there apart from everyone, as if the room was shrinking quickly around her. The entire room was out of focus, her eyes filled with tears made everything appear blurred and watery and the room, that she could describe by heart, felt foreign and alien.

"Excuse me," she whispered and turned around, stopping beside Daisy and saying "I'll go and catch a breath of fresh air."

She moved like in a quagmire, like an inactive participant in her own life. Life itself was passing by in front of her leaving her untouched and unaffected, and everything around her seemed to be far out of her reach. There was a chasm between Jemma and everyone else, a lack of understanding on everyone's part and fears that she couldn't find the force to admit out loud. There was guilt nagging at her, not regularly and only in the loneliest moments when she thought that she could stop pretending that things had always been the same, that the past was forgotten. Every night, waiting for sleep to win her over, Daisy already asleep next to her, the same old questions buzzed in her head and fuelled that guilt; Will was dead and she had never asked him whether or not she had made him happy, if he ever regretted asking her to marry him thus playing along her own game of second bests. It wasn't a very good game, people were always apt to get hurt, and did he? Four years, two of which of nothing much, he could have spent them with anyone but had been stuck with her - had he ever wished to go back? Had he ever wished to rewind the clocks and go back at the very beginning, change some things and leave other untouched? Because, at the very beginning, she had thought about it a great deal so why should it be any different for him? Try as they might, happy as they were, it had taken a long time to forget the past and get over it, to dismiss the knowledge that they were all real as the next person - they had all used each other like puppets, too caught up in society and rules, unable to really break through.

Fingertips run on walls, the Corinthian columns casting long shadows down the hall in the afternoon light,  a game of light and shadows on every surface in an empty and mourning house. There was something eerie in the golden light and the particles of dust dancing in it, in the silence and the lack of staff around, the quietness of it all - not even the voices in the sitting room were audible. It had never been like this, not that she could remember anyway, always movement and always noise - Jemma almost felt as if from one moment to another life would start again, the past weeks nothing but a dream, the whole situation a frightful sell. Charles walking down the hall and Tom walking in through the door with Fitz at his side, holding documents to bring to the library so as to be discussed with Lord Simmons. The telephone ringing and Daisy on the other side, a weekly and quick update about London. Her mother walking out on her way to the village and her just back from Oxford, suitcase beside her. And why not Will stepping out of the car and Tom greeting him _Daniels, old chap! Just in time for tea_.

The old wooden doors creaked as they closed behind her, emitting a loud thud that echoed in the silence when the two panels met and the lock closed. The park was now in front of her, with the naked trees that towered themselves against the clear blue sky and the dim sunlight shining through them. The ground covered with dead leaves - a sea of orange, red and yellow, patches of green and brown in the midst of it all. The pebbled road that led to the abbey got smaller and smaller until it disappeared in the distance.

And there they were again, she and Will, walking in the garden the day before his departure for France, pretending to be at least trying to make something out of their situation, trying to find something that would ultimately convince them that it had not been a mistake to marry. Memories as far as the eye could see, they would live there forever without ever fading, and tears running down Jemma's cheeks - no willingness on her side to wipe them away. On her own and no longer restricted by rules of society she was free to fall apart and take as much time as she wanted to put herself back together. It was something she had waited for for weeks ever since Daisy had told her about the telegram that informed them all of Will's death; it had been a build up of feelings and sorrow that had yet to come out in all their power. It was the beginning, Jemma could feel it, the first push that would allow her to let go and break apart. She wanted to break apart, just for finally getting rid of the knot at the back of her throat, just to be able to finally cry it all out and feel little better afterwards.

A couple of days earlier she had overheard her father asking Daisy _does Jemma want anything_? but had not heard the answer, having decided to go back to her room. The blank space was for her to fill and she went over the question constantly, thoughts swirling inside her head, answered whispered to herself.

What did she want? Her husband back, but that was something she couldn't have.

What else? To be able to cry as soon as the shock wore off. To know whether Will had been happy and satisfied with their life together even if it had not turned out as they might have once imagined them to be. To know if it had been quick (though she would never dare to ask for she knew her imagination quite too well). Not to have played a game of second bests. For Will to be alive. Will, Will, _Will -_ he was in her heart and in her bones making it impossible for thoughts to be turned elsewhere.

And how ridiculous was it, she wanted to ask him, that hope and death had never gotten in the same direction? That either there had been no hope and no way to die, or hope and death?

She sniffed, it was a sharp noise and the feeling of snot going up her nose, an unpleasant feeling yet better than having it run down her nose and drop on her dress, and crossed her arms on her chest.

"Jemma? Tom sent me-"

She turned around, startled. Until that moment, as he stood there interrupting her solitude, he had been nothing but a glimpse, a figure caught with the corner of her eye - a handshake with Tom, standing next to Daisy and a quick nod exchanged with Edith and Lavinia before retrieving into the shadows, mixing with everyone else, just another person dressed in black losing itself between the guests. Fitz had as much right to be there as everyone else, Jemma reminded herself, for despite the grudges and the heartbreak his life had been intertwined with theirs once. Acquaintances, they had never talked enough to call themselves friends and then, after August nineteen fourteen all contact had been broken and thoughts turned away in an attempt to shield both feelings and hearts. All the years before that day had been pushed away and dismissed, never acknowledged. They had all reinvented themselves and it was easier, perhaps, to pretend some things had never happened - despite having the memory of them always playing in the background - than having to carry out the consequences of their actions.

"God, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry for Will and-" Fitz continued.

They looked at each other, with sorrow and desperation in both their eyes, unsure of what to say. There must have been something that would sound neither flippant nor empty, something that would not bring along a long string of accusations, something that would not expose them further and dismantle whatever truce had created itself in the past minute. That he was there and neither of them was feeling the urge to run away was per se an extraordinary matter: the idea of never wanting to see the other person not quite relevant anymore. It was irrelevant that they had once stood there in the same position, pointing fingers at each other so as not to take any blame on themselves, and spilling out unfriendly and harsh words; Will's death overshadowed it, making it impossible to think about the past seven years and forcing their minds to go even more back to a point where anger, hatred and confusion had not been there.

It was that past they were now both trying to hold on to and it was that past that was now coming back in its entirety. Embalmed in their memories, unabridged and the more unforgotten, it had not seen the light of day in years. Unspoken resentments were vanishing and whatever wrongs had been done through the years ceased to exist. The whole world seemed to be moving around them, bringing them further back in time and not allowing them to stand cold-hearted and self-righteously on the steps in front of the abbey.

They were best friends in the world again and could be such for as long as it would take to offer comfort and accept it, one simple truth behind it all: after all this time they still couldn't let each other go, they couldn't turn their backs and pretend that Jemma wasn't standing there about to fall apart and that he was feeling nothing at all.

Jemma had not the strength to argue nor to open her mouth and yet there must have been something to say something to his remark. A greeting, his name, _thank you._ But what good did all the _I'm sorry-s_ make? They were not bringing Will back nor diminish the gravity of the situation and it had not been him who had caused his death.

"For what it's worth," Fitz spoke first, taking hold of the situation. "Everyone liked Will quite a lot. Even downstairs, they were all rather fond of him one way or the other."

"We've seen some trouble you and I," she replied, her voice broken and her throat burning. The sentence came out in bits and pieces, syllables followed by breaks. That her answer bore no connection to what he had said was something Jemma was aware of, but what was there to add? She was tired of it all, tired of half spoken descriptions and a reminder that he had been liked. No, what she wanted to know was where this whole ordeal was placed in a matter of relevance. "Nothing worse than this."

"Nothing could be worse, Jemma."

"No," she said as she turned around again, leaning her hand against the walls of the abbey.

The surface of the old and ocher bricks was rough under her palm, the irregularities of it cutting in her skin. All those broken hearts, how many had there been through the centuries? Her thoughts turned to everyone inside - Lavinia, Edith, Will's parents. Tom. God, Tom had lost his best friend and all she could think about was at him sitting there appearing as distant as the rest of them, hardly touching his plate. It's not fair, she wanted to scream. _It's not fair_.

There was still some of the disbelief, she clung to it with desperation; when they had first received the news, all she could think about was the idea of a mistake. Not Will, anyone but Will. They'd phone to announce it and correct themselves, it was denial she grasped onto fuelled by shock. It couldn't be over, not like that anyway, not for Will of all people.

She wanted to scream in a crescendo of rage and emotions, her voice getting louder and louder, syllables neatly pronounced, but as she opened her mouth nothing but a dead sound came out of her throat quickly transforming into a sob. There she was getting higher and higher looking at it all from a distance, the abbey with the towers and arcs in the afternoon sun, the quiet and empty garden painted with warm colours, Fitz and her standing there on the steps - motionless. There was an alternative version of her who would have been able to articulate such a simple sentence, but she died with that sob e possibility vanished completely, disappearing and never meant to be.

Another sob, Jemma's face contorted into a grimace of pain, lips pressed together and hand clutching the wall in support. There were tears now, running silently down her cheeks and falling onto her dress - the droplets not to be seen on the dark fabric. How long had she been holding it all back? How long had she wanted to cry it all out? It was all a blur, days with a dreamlike atmosphere that had no spatial nor temporal coordinates to hold them down. The tears and the pain  had gathered, hour after hour, day after day, and it now felt as if a dam had been broken and her feelings were free of restriction years and she was as bold in it as she was in argument and talking.

"Would you- Would you forgive me if I asked you to go? Please. Please, I need you to-" Her voice was pleading and desperate and bore a firmness that surprised them both.

"No." He paused. "No, Jemma, I won't- I won't go. You just do what you need to do."

There was no space for _it cannot be-s_ anymore, there was no way to even pretend that it was a mistake that Will would come back at the end of the war - the shadow of the person he had once been, fragile and small, but still him in all the details. It was real, real, real as they all stood there dressed in black. She longed for him coming back, going back from work and finding him home. She longed to go back in time, rewind it, and have the chance to love him twice as much and hold him twice as strong. Their whole relation made bigger and more important fuller by not postponing anything, a long list of good intentions that were ultimately useless. 

 _I cannot bear the thought_ but she would bear it, there had been a time before and there would be a time after but how long to get used to it? How long till she'd stop feeling odd and out of space and time, a chasm between her and everyone else, going through her days with a quite detached mode and still not being used to not having Will or even the thought of never having him. There would be no letters and he'd never go back to editing The Sketch, no more Sunday afternoons with Lavinia at Selfridge's, no more letters with heartfelt and playful confessions _I've dreamt nightly of your face_. The piano in their living room would remain untouched and the gramophone broken. And she wanted him to still be alive, to still be there.

Fitz stretched out his hand tentatively, taking a great deal of time before placing it on her shoulder with hesitant gestures, a light touch as if he was ready to pull it away, as if he was half expecting for her to say so. She was half expecting herself to tell him to go, beg him one last time to leave her alone and not witness the seams coming off, the undoing of a carefully established facade that was coming undone at light's speed. Her trembled fingers reached his and held them tight, not wanting to let go and, then she turned around.

The air smelled like autumn it was a sharp and crispy smell that filled their nostrils. Poignant, it was the smell of rotten apples, musk and oozing resin. It smelled like death and destruction and rain, and carried no softer undertones to it, no hints, no anything, as they stood there looking at each other frozen in their indecisiveness. Was it still standing the neutrality or was there yet again no place for comfort and friendship? Two roads ahead of them, no space for explanations and yet the moment was something that stretched itself further than those seconds to a distant future that would never arrive. The equilibrium they had reached would not last yet he was there in that moment, the only witness to her tears and she hoped he would at least pretend to understand everything as if they had talked through the years as if they still were the two people who had once shared a childhood.

"I- I." she didn't finish, her throat was too dry and her mind incapable of coherent thoughts and her mouth just opened and closed, gasping. Tears had not stopped and the sobs themselves came back stronger than before she was drifting away she could feel it, completely exhausted in her inhibited show off of emotions yet there was a relief that came from it all that made it worth it.

Fitz stepped closer to her, arms stretched out eventually closing around her. He held her close and there he was without judgement and Jemma with her head resting on his chest her tears coming down in a flow and wetting his coat and in that moment it didn't matter what they really thought of each other, they didn't care, for the truth was but one: Jemma's husband had just died, someone Fitz had once known whose life had for the good and the bad been closed to him, paths crossing regularly. Pain, especially hers, was no longer insular, and incommunicable - she could let herself go. His hands moved to her shoulders and his thumbs moved in slow, circular movements of comfort as he whispered _it's alright-s_ and words of comfort.

"I do love him," she spoke. "In fact, I think I loved him for much longer than I knew."

"And I'm sure that he loved you just as much, Jemma. And I know that right now it'll seems as if you won't ever be able to bear it, but you must and you will."

"I don't know how, Fitz!"

They parted. Jemma wiped her tears away and then they looked at each other with some of the old, easy affection. It was all coming back quickly - those seven years they had so promptly brushed to the side - and soon they'd be back being strangers to each other with no strength for confrontation. There would be no touching and no love, no mutual consolation, everything would be neutral again and they'd be indifferent and self-entitled in a request for an explanation that would not come. They'd go back being defined by all the choices they had made with nothing at all between them, the feeble glimpse of a resuming friendship fresh in their memories but ultimately leading nowhere without a long discussions about what had previously ruined it.

"Would you allow me to speak as I would have in the old days?" Fitz asked, urgently. It had to be done now before everything was to end, otherwise he might have lacked the courage and she the will to listen to it.

"Go on then."

"You're strong, Jemma, a storm-braver if I ever saw one. Nothing can take that away from you. Nothing can change that."

 


End file.
